Eastern Front Grand Campaign - Worklog

[:FI:TacticalS!]

Hey TactS

What is the source of this info?

Bit surprised to find no P39 - one of my sources lists the 9th GvIAP as having Lagg3's and P39s and says stationed at Zeta-airfield, Stalingrad Front October 42 to Spring 43?

Cheers

Nellip

It is from this website - http://www.yogysoft.de/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; .

Use his table as a guideline. Nothing beats a well researched campaign. However, many folks in the IL-2 community have enjoyed this tabulation, which is rather accurate. Notwithstanding, one can usually find something missing or slightly off in this table.

TS!

[:FI:Rabitski]

I think his source is from "Der Grossen Uber Planeset" you can get it from "Luftwhinner's R Us" . It's very hard to get a plane set for the VVS, lot's of guy's use some Prix plane set but that is really misleading, eg. YaK 1b's flew in 1943 in some area's. Where that is true they are not the same 1b's as you have in the game. The VVS used to change engine's after 100hrs flying. Not re- work them but bin them as the pilot's were very, very hard on them and burnt them out. The YaK 1b that was in the air in late 43-44 was really more in line with the YaK 3 than the YaK 1b.
Indeed Yakovlev does not have a recourd of any Yak called 1b. Lot's of Different YaK 1's from the M 105P through to the M 105PF engine in late 43. Same story with the Yak 7's and YaK 9's. The Yak 7's listed as being @ Stalingrad were in fact Yak 7 b c/n 820307 plant No.82, Batch3 which were the closest thing to the Yak 1b in this game as you'll get. Also from the summer of 42 Yak 7B M-105PF's fighter's fought intensive battles with the OKL near Stalingrad, On Aug 20th a whole division The 288th IAD equipped with the latest batches of YaK's were commited to the action.

The same goes with the YaK 9's constent updates to the hull and engine and into action by late 42 and delivered to the 434thIAP in the middle of November and commited to action for the first time near Stalingrad in the secound half of December 42 c/n 0118 Batch 1 plant 18.

I'm afraid I have on data on the LaGG's as I never was into them that much, but Yak's are an old love of mine

[:FI:TacticalS!]

Interesting information Rab.

Regardless of your group's final decision concerning the plane set, then comes the harder decision(s) on whether to try a really historical experience with one side (Russian) being overwhelm a bit in this situation, and flying certain outclassed planes, or whether you want to bring things into more balance.

From time to time I like for a mission or two having folks experience the cruel reality of "historic encounters," but generally try to give them something to provide a fair fight in the game afterwards. It is always a matter of authenticity versus fun within the boundaries of this game.

TS!

[:FI:Rabitski]

The one thing the VVS did not lack was planes, granted first generation fighter's in 41 to mid 42 were few a far between, by late 42 they were there in force. Same can't be said for the OKL. They faced a number of problem's that they never really over came and when the trap was shut @ Stalingrad they became severe problem's.

Because the OKL were advancing they had to make use of make shift airfield's, now where's that's not so much of a problem in and off itself once the weather changed in late Oct and late November they found themself only being able to fly missions early in the morning while there strip's were frozen. Also because of the weather condition's they suffered a large amount damage to there fighter's on take off and landing's from these said field's and becuse these were makeshift runway's damage to there fighter's were not that easy to repair. So you are faced with the question what was the OKL's paper strenght and what was the combat ready force ( VVS forces reported a 75% drop in OKL fighter sweeps mission's form OCT-DEC).

Now the VVS did not have this problem because they were defence they had the use of many pre war airfield's and because they were setting the trap, the makeshift runway's they were useing were much better prepaired than that of the OKL.

Also, and this fact became clear to the OKL @ Demyansk and Kholm the winter before. Given poor weather in which OKL bomber's couldn't fly the army stopped gaining ground and it became clear that the german troop's had become dependent on airsupport and with out it thing's just ground to a halt. So when there were break's in the weather which enabled the OKL fighter's to get up they were more often then not sent out on ground attack mission's in an effort to relive to pressure on the ground troop's.
When the German's @ Stalingrad were encircled this became a huge problem for the fighter's as they had two area's to support, those trying to get in and those trying to hold out @ Stalingrad. Added to there woe's was the HUGE amount off AAA they faced from Kerch all the way to Stalingrad and back also they had the problem that if a fight was damaged on the way to Stalingrad and made it to he field there may not be the spare part there to fix the plane, so in effect that plane was a loss.

Now there is no way around the fact that OKL pilot's shot down large number or VVS planes, but wouldn't that lead one to belive that they were flying in a very target rich location, so there must have been large number's of VVS in the area. Also and this goes for both side's what was the break down of the airkills the pilot's were getting. When you study the kill's you find a lot of them were either ground attack planes, transport's or secound line fighter's, When the OKL came up against the newer planes thing's didn't come up as well for them as they may have wished. Russian ace's had the same thing when you look @ the planes they shot down you find a large number of transport's and HS 129's and so on and not so many fighter's as you would have expected.
I guess the German Ace's got so many kills in part due to the way there force was structered in Fliegerkorps which they moved about the front to which ever area needed help. So pilot's in such a group were sure to see a large amount of action. Now while this format worked well early in the war it kind of hid a greater flaw with in the OKL and that was the fact that there was to few fighter's. It worked well as long as the Russian's kept there fighter's in fixed positions defending certin location's, but they had started to give that up in late 41 and had infact started to move there guard unit's about like the German's.

Also once the front was fairly quite and the VVS were defending this place and that, the Fliegerkorps worked well, they could move in a swamp the defenders in an area, then withdraw them to a different sector and repeat the whole thing. But with the winter offencives in 41 and 42, the OKL found itself in the position that it need these groups everywhere at once and there just wasn't the planes or pilot's in the AO to stop the Russians. Indeed you have to bare in mind that the winter offensive of 42 wasn't limited to just Stalingrad but the entire western front moved against the Germans.
Now there is a big difference between the winter offensive of 41 and the one that started to roll in 42. In 41 the Russian army was not ready or even expected to launch an attack along the entire front. Indeed the high command only wanted a counterattack to relive the pressure on Moscow, but Stalin demanded one along the entire front so really it was doomed from the outset despite early gain's.
But in this loss the VVS sowed the seed's for the German defeat in the winter of 42. The OKL got a falce picture of what it needed to maintain and defeat any further VVS counterattack. And they just weren't ready for the huge number's that came at them in from 42 onward's. And you also have to bare in mind that it took time too for the VVS to gather these forces and get their battle plan's in order for such a huge counterattack
if you think more about that fact you get the feeling that the Russian's really weren't fighting the German's or for there life's but time. They needed time, they knew they could use the size of the country and the harshness coupled with a number of stiff rear guard action's to gain the time they needed to gather the supplies and manpower needed to crush the Germans. And I think this is made clear by the fact that @ Stalingrad suddenly you saw all these new types of fighter's show up for the first time. They were the deffenders thus they have the advantage of picking where and when to put up a fight, the attackers allway's has to advance or risk loseing the momentium.

[:FI:Nellip]

Great post Greg, and your assessment of the issues was both eloquent and succinct.

I am currently reading "Stopped at Stalingrad" by Noel Hayward - which is an assessment of issues affecting the Luftwaffe and their support of events leading up to Stalingrad, back to Barbarossa, and issues around the battle for Stalingrad itself. He does consider the VVS as well but it is mainly from the German side that the analysis is written.

His evidence supports most of what you say - certainly the number of operational German aircraft, as well as the nominal strength, dropped drastically during the autumn and winter of 42/43 so the Luftwaffe certainly were less effective as time went on. However he also asserts that the overall number of sorties flown by the Luftwaffe was 3 times higher than the VVS during the course of the battle.

I would certainly agree with you that the German army was only able to operate effectively when attacking with significant air support - that was what Blitzkreig was all about and the Luftwaffe were structured and organised as being a force to support ground assault, as opposed to strategic bombing for example.

Capturing all of this in an Il2 campaign is going to be a challenge!

[:FI:Dr_Strangelove]

Wow, you guys really know your stuff. Great information and assessment.

I was trying to figure out if Demyansk was on any of the IL2 maps as it would make for a great battle of the campaign from what I have read about it over the past few weeks.

My thoughts at this point were to focus on only the Russian counter-attacks as far as modeling of battles in order to make it more fun for the group. Otherwise the missions will probably be much too hard with everyone getting shot down constantly.

[:FI:Rabitski]

Each time a plane took to the air be it a transport, bomber strike, Jabo or fighter sweep is classed a sortie. Normaly people take from these number's that if X amount of aircraft carried out sorties they were all fighter sweeps, when in fact it was more the case that if any plane flew in the combat zone that is classed as a sortie. But it's so hard to get figures for this to break down that it's not worth the trouble. And that problem is compounded when you are dealing with VVS stats you end up going through book after book trying to pick out Unit name's, plane types and the field's they worked from. And my wife freek's out when she come's home to find the house littered with book's and the hover standing in the corner .
The balance one is looking for is to make a mission takeing into accout the standard of the people your going to be flying them with. The chance's of getting down alive and completing the mission goal without haveing to put the enemy in as Rookie yet still making it a challange to fly. With the Pacific one's we are doing the ratio I picked Ace, vet,ace and it showes by the amount of time I spend swimming home. But that's how it was and as time goes by we are getting more and more home and downing more enemy planes. I guess you have to make the mission in such a way as the guy's will feel they have some chance but then that's allway's been the issue be it with Coop's, On line War's or dogfight server's. The 3rd volume of Black Cross/ Red Star is out next month and it's dealing only with Stalingrad we should be able to get some good info from that and it seem's to be pritty balance'd from what I gathered for book 1 and 2.

Doc The map's we have for IL-2 are complet crap apart for Finland-Lenningrad, and the Kuban and Crimea maps. Demyansk lay between the Northern and the Kalinin front and is just outside the area covered in these map's, same goes with the Moscow and Smolensk map. Most of the air battles resulting from the Moscow winter offensive in Feb 42, were not fought in what we have as the Moscow map but around Vitebsk whice is on the Smolensk map .

[:FI:Nellip]

Crimea - Summer 42

I came across a campaign by Beowolf which we could incorporate into the Grand Campaign structure. As written it has about 20 missions and covers the invasion of the Crimea in Summer of 1942 up to and including the seige of Sevestapol.

It allows pilots to fly both Blue and Red at present but would be easy to adapt to Red only with AI for Blue. The campaign is called Crimean Pawns.

As we have lots of stuff to write for other parts of the GPW maybe we could adapt this rather than write a Crimean campaign from scratch?

I flew a couple of missions from it off line last night and it was pretty well structured. There is a lot going on in them which might need to be toned down for playability. Maybe we could try one or two out?

I know Beowolf sometimes posts on our site so maybe we could PM him for permission to use his IP

[:FI:Dr_Strangelove]

That works for me Nellip. No reason to re-invent the wheel if we do not need to.

I too have found some missions here and there that I will probably modifying a bit to suit our needs.

[:FI:Nellip]

As the skinners have all been so busy I thought I would post an update on the mission building front!

I now have 12 missions for the Stalingrad campaign - from July 42 to January 43. They cover Operation Blue, the battle for the city and Operation Winterstorm. They involve VVS against German, Italian and Romanian forces.

I have also got 13 missions for the Crimea adapted from Beowolf's campaign, with a further 7 still to do.

I have some more ideas for Stalingrad missions but I have not had time yet to write them up!

All have been tested single player. If I can ever get my router and firewall settings sorted out so I can host I will test them as multiplayer

Maybe anyone else writing missions for this can post an update also?

[:FI:Sneaky_Russian]

I've got a couple of versions of a Stalingrad night intercept .

[:FI:Dr_Strangelove]

I have a few missions finished for the early part of the war in Smolensk. I am also working on asome Leningrad stuff but need some time to get things sorted there.

With the announcement of Kiev as a new map I am really looking forward to integrating that into our grand campaign when it releases as well.

[:FI:Dr_Strangelove]

Man this mission building is a lot of fun. I have the Smolensk Pocket almost tweaked to my liking. It will be several missions taking place during the course of one day as the Russians try to free their comrades from the Wehrmacht encirclement so they can retreat to Moscow.

[:FI:Falcon]

I can wardly hait!

The skins are coming along sloooowly but we may be ready in a tweek or wo.

Yeah, mission building is a hoot and a half. I still remember my TB3 vs. Me-262 campaign over Guadalcanal I designed.

It just oozed authentisity!


Fal "No clue" con

[:FI:Nellip]

Hey Falcon - "horses for courses" as we say over the pond

You stick with the skinning mate and leave the simple tasks like mission building to the rest of us!